The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as Amended by the No Child Left Behind Act: A Primer

[Excerpt] The primary source of federal aid to K-12 education is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), particularly its Title I, Part A program of Education for the Disadvantaged. The ESEA was initially enacted in 1965 (P.L. 89- 10), and was most recently amended and reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLBA, P.L. 107-110). Virtually all ESEA programs are authorized through FY2008. During the current 110th Congress, congressional hearings are being conducted in anticipation of subsequent consideration of legislation to amend and extend the ESEA

A Two-moment Radiation Hydrodynamics Module in Athena Using a Time-explicit Godunov Method

We describe a module for the Athena code that solves the gray equations of radiation hydrodynamics (RHD), based on the first two moments of the radiative transfer equation. We use a combination of explicit Godunov methods to advance the gas and radiation variables including the non-stiff source terms, and a local implicit method to integrate the stiff source terms. We adopt the M1 closure relation and include all leading source terms. We employ the reduced speed of light approximation (RSLA) with subcycling of the radiation variables in order to reduce computational costs. Our code is dimensionally unsplit in one, two, and three space dimensions and is parallelized using MPI. The streaming and diffusion limits are well-described by the M1 closure model, and our implementation shows excellent behavior for a problem with a concentrated radiation source containing both regimes simultaneously. Our operator-split method is ideally suited for problems with a slowly varying radiation field and dynamical gas flows, in which the effect of the RSLA is minimal. We present an analysis of the dispersion relation of RHD linear waves highlighting the conditions of applicability for the RSLA. To demonstrate the accuracy of our method, we utilize a suite of radiation and RHD tests covering a broad range of regimes, including RHD waves, shocks, and equilibria, which show second-order convergence in most cases. As an application, we investigate radiation-driven ejection of a dusty, optically thick shell in the interstellar medium (ISM). Finally, we compare the timing of our method with other well-known iterative schemes for the RHD equations. Our code implementation, Hyperion, is suitable for a wide variety of astrophysical applications and will be made freely available on the Web.Comment: 30 pages, 29 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Numerical Simulations of Turbulent Molecular Clouds Regulated by Reprocessed Radiation Feedback from Nascent Super Star Clusters

Radiation feedback from young star clusters embedded in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) is believed to be important to the control of star formation. For the most massive and dense clouds, including those in which super star clusters (SSCs) are born, pressure from reprocessed radiation exerted on dust grains may disperse a significant portion of the cloud mass back into the interstellar medium (ISM). Using our radiaton hydrodynamics (RHD) code, Hyperion, we conduct a series of numerical simulations to test this idea. Our models follow the evolution of self-gravitating, strongly turbulent clouds in which collapsing regions are replaced by radiating sink particles representing stellar clusters. We evaluate the dependence of the star formation efficiency (SFE) on the size and mass of the cloud and $\kappa$, the opacity of the gas to infrared (IR) radiation. We find that the single most important parameter determining the evolutionary outcome is $\kappa$, with $\kappa \gtrsim 15 \text{ cm}^2 \text{ g}^{-1}$ needed to disrupt clouds. For $\kappa = 20-40 \text{ cm}^2 \text{ g}^{-1}$, the resulting SFE=50-70% is similar to empirical estimates for some SSC-forming clouds. The opacities required for GMC disruption likely apply only in dust-enriched environments. We find that the subgrid model approach of boosting the direct radiation force $L/c$ by a "trapping factor" equal to a cloud's mean IR optical depth can overestimate the true radiation force by factors of $\sim 4-5$. We conclude that feedback from reprocessed IR radiation alone is unlikely to significantly reduce star formation within GMCs unless their dust abundances or cluster light-to-mass ratios are enhanced.Comment: 19 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Home Value Protection: Final Report

The following report provides an overview of a Home Value Protection (HVP) product to evaluate the practicality of making such a program more widely available and provide background for anyone considering such a plan. The paper is based largely on the Home Value Protection product established in Syracuse New York in 2002, and a number of the authors of this paper participated in the establishment of the Syracuse Home Value Protection program.The paper contains four sections:1: Investor OutreachThis section provides background information about the Syracuse program, the current and potential participants and what roles they might play, a review of a few of the ways such a program could be implemented, and links to various media coverage.2: Index ResearchThe Syracuse program measured changes in house values by a real estate index for the area (rather than individual house sale price), and this section evaluates a number of different index methods using four markets historical data to see how well the different indexes would have performed with a HVP product (had it been available).3: Capital Requirements & PricingThis section provides a model for estimating the pricing requirements and capital required for a program across multiple markets. While not exhaustive, this approach will provide a useful reference and starting point for anyone evaluating investment in such a program.4: Regulatory EnvironmentThis section provides information on some of the regulatory entities across the markets used in the analysis. Due to the variations in the way a HVP product could be implemented, regulations could apply in a variety of ways and this section can only offer a starting point for potential investors or participants

Local Volume Effects in the Generalized Pseudopotential Theory

The generalized pseudopotential theory (GPT) is a powerful method for deriving real-space transferable interatomic potentials. Using a coarse-grained electronic structure, one can explicitly calculate the pair ion-ion and multi-ion interactions in simple and transition metals. Whilst successful in determining bulk properties, in central force metals the GPT fails to describe crystal defects for which there is a significant local volume change. A previous paper [PhysRevLett.66.3036 (1991)] found that by allowing the GPT total energy to depend upon some spatially-averaged local electron density, the energetics of vacancies and surfaces could be calculated within experimental ranges. In this paper, we develop the formalism further by explicitly calculating the forces and stress tensor associated with this total energy. We call this scheme the adaptive GPT (aGPT) and it is capable of both molecular dynamics and molecular statics. We apply the aGPT to vacancy formation and divacancy binding in hcp Mg and also calculate the local electron density corrections to the bulk elastic constants and phonon dispersion for which there is refinement over the baseline GPT treatment.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Rhythms of Locomotion Expressed by Limulus polyphemus, the American Horseshoe Crab: I. Synchronization by Artificial Tides

Limulus polyphemus, the American horseshoe crab, has an endogenous clock that drives circatidal rhythms of locomotor activity. In this study, we examined the ability of artificial tides to entrain the locomotor rhythms of Limulus in the laboratory. In experiments one and two, the activity of 16 individuals of L. polyphemus was monitored with activity boxes and “running wheels.” When the crabs were exposed to artificial tides created by changes in water depth, circatidal rhythms were observed in animals exposed to 12.4-h “tidal” cycles of either water depth changes (8 of 8 animals) or inundation (7 of 8 animals). In experiment three, an additional 8 animals were exposed to water depth changes under cyclic conditions of light and dark and then monitored for 10 days with no imposed artificial tides. Most animals (5) clearly synchronized their activity to the imposed artificial tidal cycles, and 3 of these animals showed clear evidence of entrainment after the artificial tides were terminated. Overall, these results demonstrate that the endogenous tidal clock that influences locomotion in Limulus can be entrained by imposed artificial tides. In the laboratory, these tidal cues override the influence of light/dark cycles. In their natural habitat, where both tidal and photoperiod inputs are typically always present, their activity rhythms are likely to be much more complex